


love endures

by redwolves



Series: the sea seizes [3]
Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Spoiler Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-10-28 18:23:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20783075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redwolves/pseuds/redwolves
Summary: It's a nobleman's name written in a sailor's hand, rough and sharp around the edges as if it were carved into his skin with a knife:LÉANDRE D'ARCY.If only he knew who it belonged to.





	1. léandre d'arcy

**Author's Note:**

> this idea hit me just as i was about to fall asleep at 3am and i shit you not i shot upright in my bed from the excitement and scared my poor fuckin cat half to death

The name first emerged on the inner side of his wrist when he was twelve years old.

He remembers running to his mother’s bedroom in the middle of the night, all aflutter with excitement as he leaped onto her bed, shaking her awake to show her the black lines that had appeared right atop his veins.

“Léandre d’Arcy?” Princess De Sardet read out loud, her brows furrowing as she looked at her son with bewilderment.

The d’Arcy family that she knew of, she told him, had only one son. His name was not Léandre, but Bastien.

“Don’t fret, Tristan,” she shushed him as his face fell, caressing the black curls of his hair soothingly. “We’ll find your Léandre, I promise.”

But, as it turned out, Léandre could not be found; his family had given him away to the Nauts.

Were Tristan not the nephew of a merchant prince, these circumstances might have been overlooked, but as it was his uncle told him in no uncertain terms that under no circumstances was he to seek out his soulmate.

It would be a scandal; the son of a noble house, bonded to a mere _sailor’s _boy? Admitting this would be no different than to personally hand the Nauts leverage over one of the most powerful families on the continent, and so Tristan and his mother were both sworn to secrecy.

“I’m so sorry, my darling.” His mother held him in her embrace that same night, trying to gather up the pieces of his broken heart as he cried against her shoulder. “Have faith. No matter what your uncle tells you, I’m certain you will find him some day.”

Tristan did not believe her then, doesn’t think he believes her now, thirteen years later as he walks the port of Sérène to meet the captain of the ship meant to carry him to Teer Fradee, yet fate has a strange way of working itself out.

“Lively there, lads and lasses!”

The voice pierces through him like an arrow lodged through his chest, pinning him in place as he stands and stares at the captain’s back, pulse pounding in his wrist right above where the name burns in his skin.

“Green blood?” Kurt, standing right by his side, somehow sounds distant and far away, as if speaking to him through a wall of glass. “What’s the matter?”

Tristan takes an unsteady step forward, toward the silhouette of the man barking orders at his subordinates.

“You, man! Carry that properly!”

His name.

What was his name? 

Someone drops their cargo, boxes crashing onto the ground and the sound of porcelain shattering jolts Tristan from his trance.

Vasco. Captain _Vasco_, not Léandre. But if he happened to be seagiven, the Nauts would’ve changed his name. Then, perhaps—

Tristan breathes in deep, trying to calm his heart that's hammering against his ribs as if to break through the bone, his hands shaking slightly at his sides as he clears his throat and calls out.

“Captain Vasco?”

The man freezes and Tristan knows at once that he feels it, too. Tristan can see it in his shoulders, in his back as he stands still like a statue among the bustle of the other Nauts around him, who are hurrying along to make the last preparations for the voyage while their captain is motionless.

Seconds seem to stretch into hours before he finally moves, turning around ever so slowly, and the moment their eyes meet hope blossoms in Tristan’s chest for the first time in years.

The captain’s lips are parted slightly and his amber eyes are wide when they meet Tristan’s darker ones, gazing at him in mute astonishment and something inside Tristan _sings_, like everything has finally been put right in the world. 

His face, Tristan thinks, is perfect. _He_ is perfect.

“Okay, what am I missing, here?” Kurt startles both him and the captain, glancing between the two of them with a confused frown. “Do you two know each other?”

Tristan almost laughs, but when he looks back at the captain his smile falters; Captain Vasco's expression is shuttered as he looks Tristan up and down, a hard line in his mouth before he shakes his head as if to shake something off of him.

“No,” he answers curtly, averting his gaze from Tristan to look at Kurt. “We’ve never met.”

What? But…

Tristan takes another step forward with urgency. “Tristan! My name- it’s Tristan De Sardet.” 

Captain Vasco nods in acknowledgment, but there’s nothing in his face that speaks of recognition. Tristan’s name has no effect on him whatsoever. “The prince’s nephew, I presume?”

The hope that filled Tristan before hollows out, his shoulders sagging as a familiar bitterness fouls the taste in his mouth. He was mistaken, of course. It was his own fault for being naive enough to believe his soulmate would appear before him so suddenly, after all this time.

He should’ve given up on the idea a long time ago, thought he had let it go when his uncle told him to, yet apparently the desire within him is still there.

A dying ember, perhaps, that refuses to blow out.

With how the captain reacted when Tristan called his name, he almost thought… but no matter. He won’t make that mistake twice.

“Yes,” Tristan says, forcing a smile onto his face. “The prince’s nephew.” 

* * *

Neither of them speak of it to each other once they embark on their long voyage to Teer Fradee, but Tristan does confide in Constantin afterwards.

“Have you asked him?” Constantin suggests, sighing with his elbows hanging over the ship’s railing when Tristan answers that he hasn’t. “Why ever not? If there is even the slightest chance that he’s your soulmate—”

“He didn’t recognize my name,” Tristan replies, lower back leaning against the wooden edge and his arms crossed over his chest as he watches a few cabin boys scrub the deck. He recognizes Jonas, remembers what happened with his parents back in Sérène, but dismisses the thought as soon as it arises.

“There may be a reason for that,” Constantin argues, pushing off from the railing and turning to face him. “You know how secretive the Nauts are; it’s rare for them to be bonded to someone who’s not one of them. Perhaps he’s struggling with the revelation? Or something else is going on? My point is that you won’t know until you _ask_!”

Tristan thinks about his cousin’s words in the days that follow, but whenever he finds a chance to speak to Vasco privately the captain always seems to find some new chore to do, orders to give or subordinates to supervise and it is _torture_.

Every time Tristan looks at Vasco he feels a sense of belonging he’s never experienced before, yet Vasco seems to have no problem shutting him out. Their conversations are cordial at best and frosty at worst, which doesn’t give Tristan much in the way of confidence when he finally works up the courage to ask.

He finds Vasco alone in his captain’s quarters for a rare moment, seated at his desk and writing something down in a journal, and takes advantage of the opportunity as he steps inside with a knock against the open door. “Captain?”

Vasco freezes again--an effect Tristan seems to have on him often--his pen motionless on the page before he carefully puts it down beside the journal and looks up at Tristan. 

His tone is neutral and businesslike, giving nothing away. “Can I help you?”

“I was wondering,” Tristan starts, eyes tracing the tattoos lining Vasco’s brows, fully visible now that he has his hat off. “Have you per chance ever heard of… of a man named Léandre d’Arcy?”

Nothing. Vasco simply stares at him in thought, reclining back into his chair. “Can’t say that I have. Why?”

Tristan smiles wanly, a preferable alternative to pulling his hair out like he truly wants to do. “No reason. Forget I said anything.”

He feels Vasco’s gaze on his back as he turns around to leave the room, heavy between his shoulder blades.

“Is he your soulmate?”

Tristan halts, hand clutching at the side of the doorway to steady himself. He inhales a quiet breath, composure shaky at best when he eventually finds the strength to face Vasco once more. He finds the captain staring at him with an inscrutable expression, elbows on the table and hands folded in front of his face, hiding his mouth.

Going against his better judgment, Tristan approaches the desk and rolls up the sleeve of his right arm, revealing the bare skin of his wrist and the black name marked upon it in sharp and rough letters, right below his hand.

Vasco goes very still when he sees it, saying nothing for a while and betraying none of his emotions in his blank expression. He reaches out and lightly grips Tristan’s wrist with his fingers, eyes fixated on the name as Tristan’s breath hitches in his throat at the touch.

It is feather-light, inducing a shiver down his spine when Vasco’s thumb brushes over the name and Tristan doesn’t understand, could cry out in sheer frustration.

If Vasco is not his soulmate, then why does his body react like this? Why is his heart pounding, why is his skin burning, why does he feel so utterly and perfectly _whole_ when he’s around him?

“He was given to the Nauts a short while after he was born,” Tristan explains weakly, which seems to snap Vasco out of wherever his mind drifted off to while caressing Tristan’s skin, yanking his hand back as if he’d been burned. “I thought… perhaps—"

“Sorry,” Vasco interrupts him abruptly as he leans back into his chair again and folds his arms in front of him, not meeting Tristan’s eyes. “Wish I could help.”

Tristan’s heart drops. “Right. Of course.” No reason to embarrass himself any further than he already has.

Although, just as he makes to turn around and head out the room, he pauses.

“Forgive me, this may be a personal question,” he starts, thinking that if he doesn’t find out it’ll drive him mad until the end of time. “But, do you have a soulmate, Captain Vasco?”

Vasco picks up his pen again, returning to his writing. “I do.”

“What’s their name?”

He’s silent for a moment, the tip of his pen hovering over the page before he lets out a deep sigh.

“Drust,” he answers, looking up at Tristan with his gaze aloof and cold. “A male name native to Teer Fradee, I’ve been told.”

“I see.” Tristan swallows thickly, and something must be stuck his throat as he suddenly finds it hard to breathe. “Well, I hope you find him.”

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

* * *

Vasco watches De Sardet leave, and as soon as the door closes shut behind him all the tension drains out of Vasco at once as he sags back against his chair with a weary breath.

His hand instinctively reaches down to his hipbone where the name is written in a graceful hand, contradictory and nonsensical if his soulmate is a native like he was lead to believe. He thumbs at it through his trousers, always feeling it burn whenever De Sardet is near, and his thoughts linger on the mark on De Sardet’s cheek, but it all seems so absurd.

Everything inside him is telling him that he already found his soulmate weeks ago when he first met him in the port of Sérène, standing there and staring at him in awe and wonder, a rapture that had overtaken them both.

Yet his name is not Drust, just as Vasco’s name is not Léandre.

He has no idea what to think. The handwriting on De Sardet’s wrist was so eerily similar to his own--could Léandre be the name given to him by his parents, before he became a Naut? But even if that’s true, De Sardet’s name is clearly not Drust and, by his own accounts, he has never stepped foot on Teer Fradee before.

Even if Vasco were to suppose that De Sardet is in truth a native who somehow ended up the nephew of a merchant prince, the timeline makes no sense. If De Sardet was stolen as a child young enough to have no memories of the island, considering his age he would’ve had to be taken… what, twenty, twenty-five years ago? No one from the continent knew about the island back then. Hikmet, its oldest city, is only fifteen years old. 

It’s impossible for him and De Sardet to be bonded to each other, no matter how he looks at it. In the end, Vasco's soulmate must be a native on the island, while De Sardet’s soulmate is probably another Naut. 

Vasco closes his eyes and resolves to think of it no more.

His name is not, and never will be, Léandre.


	2. not yours, not mine

His ship arrives safely at the port of New Sérène before it is unceremoniously ripped from his hands.

“I’ve only heard praise from our passengers,” Vasco argues, though he may as well have been talking to a wall with how utterly unimpressed Admiral Cabral looks. “My crew took direction well and performed admirably, we didn’t run into a single complication during the journey, our cargo is in order, the ship itself is—”

“Captain Vasco,” the admiral interrupts with irritation creasing her brow and his spine stiffens at attention. “This is not up for debate.”

His jaw clenches, muscle jumping beneath the skin. He lowers his head and exhales his frustration, looking away when he catches the sight of De Sardet and his cousin standing a small distance ahead, speaking to a noblewoman, though their conversation is too far removed to overhear.

Dressed in finery and gold, owning the city before even having stepped foot in it. Vasco’s gaze lingers on De Sardet’s shoulders, the subtle slope of his spine down to the dip in his back, emphasized by the short coat that hugs his form in a flattering away.

Vasco’s hands suddenly feel restless, his hip glowing warm.

“You’ve removed me from command and taken my ship, fine,” Vasco says, tearing his eyes away with some difficulty to face his admiral once more. “Then assign me a new post, give me another ship. What possible use could a legate of the Merchant Congregation have for a single Naut?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Vasco.” A hint of amusement flits across the admiral’s features, there and gone before her expression smooths over once more. “You have your orders.”

“But—”

“Captain,” she says sharply, his mouth snapping shut as her patience has clearly reached an end. “Follow your orders; I won’t tell you again.”

“Yes, admiral.” His lips tense into a displeased line as he’s dismissed, but before he turns away, a thought occurs to him. “Admiral?”

She narrows her eyes at him, the movement slight but enough to let him know he’s treading dangerous waters. “What is it?”

The words hover on the tip of his tongue, a simple question so easily asked—_do you know of a Léandre d’Arcy who was given to the Nauts?_—but the consequences of such a question do not escape him.

He would have to tell her why he was asking, which would lead her right back to De Sardet. Having the foremost diplomat on the island bonded to a Naut would complicate matters, not merely for De Sardet’s reputation as a neutral party among other factions, but for the relationship between the Congregation and the Nauts as well.

It’s a wonder De Sardet confided in Vasco at all, but then again, he seemed driven by an almost desperate need to find his soulmate at the time. The two of them didn’t speak much after the conversation that took place in Vasco’s cabin, and Vasco certainly doesn’t owe De Sardet any loyalty, but it wouldn’t be right of him to disclose something so intimate.

Bondmarks are often used for political maneuverings, that he knows, but he has his own opinion on the matter. Being bonded to someone is deeply personal, meant to be celebrated and cherished, not _used_.

“Never mind,” Vasco says at length, glancing over at De Sardet again who now stands talking to his mercenary man from the Coin Guard, his cousin having apparently left with the noblewoman. “It’s not important.”

A bold-faced lie, that, but Vasco is far too chagrined about having his ship taken away to care.

“Dismissed, then.”

Reluctance stiffening his every step, Vasco leaves the admiral behind to approach De Sardet and his mercenary.

De Sardet turns his eyes on him. Brown like whiskey, Vasco thinks, mouth feeling a little dry. He blames it on a lack of hydration and refocuses on De Sardet’s expression, but Vasco can read nothing from his face.

The few times Vasco encountered De Sardet before, he always seemed a little flustered, his footing unsteady as he prodded Vasco with insecure questions, but there is little trace of that vulnerability left on the young legate’s features.

“Captain,” De Sardet greets him formally, distant in a way that makes Vasco’s skin prickle. “Is something wrong?”

Vasco crosses his arms over his chest. “My admiral laid me off. It seems I am now a captain without a ship.”

“Ah.” De Sardet frowns slightly, troubled. “I hope it’s not on our account; my cousin was delighted with your services.”

“She refused to give me a reason, but I doubt you had anything to do with it,” Vasco replies dismissively, starting to grow annoyed thinking back on the conversation. “Going forward, I am to offer you any assistance you might need per the admiral’s orders.”

“Indeed?” De Sardet arches his brows slightly, a tinge of sarcasm to his words. “I appreciate the enthusiasm.” 

Vasco supposes his tone was a little bit testy. “Don’t take it personally.”

But perhaps De Sardet should, because Vasco knows very well that at least half of his reluctance has to do with the misunderstanding that arose between them before. De Sardet thought Vasco his soulmate—the disappointment in his gaze had been hard to look at—and now Vasco is suddenly supposed to be at his beck and call, as if nothing happened.

It’s going to be an uneasy situation at best, embarrassing at worst.

“Well,” De Sardet says at length, speaking in a measured way which contrasts the nonchalant words that follow. “I suppose you’re stuck with me then.”

Vasco’s frown deepens as De Sardet flashes him a diplomatic smile, as if Vasco is some disgruntled aristocrat he needs to please. It’s evident that De Sardet is doing his best to establish some distance between them, perhaps hoping to smooth things over as a result, but it merely leaves Vasco feeling coddled.

“So it seems,” Vasco replies, trying his best to remain neutral even as annoyance creases between his brows. “In any case, I am at your service. For a time.”

De Sardet inclines his head. “Let’s get going, then. I have a few stops to make before we head for the governor’s palace.”

“By all means.”

Vasco glances at De Sardet’s mercenary man who appears indifferent about his presence, and falls into step beside him while De Sardet leads them onward.

They find their way out of the port without much trouble. As they walk out onto the streets proper, the scaffolding along various buildings catches Vasco’s eye. The city is clearly not yet finished being built, which explains the amount of large cargo ships he saw earlier; they must still be shipping in resources from various parts of the island. Considering how recently established New Sérène is compared to Hikmet and Thélème, it’s hardly surprising.

While Vasco observes the city his companions are silent. He thinks this entire walk is going to be spent without any chatter, looking over at the mercenary with some consideration when the man in question meets his eyes, pauses, and then speaks to him.

“You look like you’ve just swallowed a bucket of piss.”

Vasco stares at the bodyguard in mild surprise. Being a sailor, the language hardly offends him, but he hadn’t expected it as an opener.

“Having to look at your face is not unlike swallowing a bucket of piss, I agree,” Vasco responds without pause; he hasn’t engaged in any casual ribbing since he became a captain, but that doesn’t mean his tongue has dulled. Though his quick wit may not be appreciated, it occurs to him a second later. “Apologies, De Sardet.”

The mercenary—Kurt—snorts in what might almost be considered amusement, had it come from a person who wasn’t perpetually scowling.

“Don’t mind me, captain,” De Sardet responds nonchalantly, not even bothering to look behind him as he keeps walking. “I’m used to it, having had Kurt for a teacher.”

There’s that sting of irritation again, working up the back of his neck.

“Vasco.”

This time De Sardet does glance over his shoulder at him. “I’m sorry?”

“You don’t have to keep using my rank,” Vasco clarifies briskly. “I have a name.”

Averting his eyes, De Sardet turns his attention back on the road as he leads them through a wide street, toward a merchant on the corner. “I’m well aware of your name, captain.”

Boundary established, then.

“As you wish, _legate_,” Vasco sneers, gaining a small measure of satisfaction from the way De Sardet’s shoulders stiffen, though De Sardet does not bother responding with a retort as he engages the merchant with conversation.

Vasco sighs, frustrated as he stands off to the side and ignores the way Kurt glances between him and De Sardet, wondering to himself what in all the high seas he could’ve possibly done to piss off his admiral for her to punish him like this.

He’s saddled with a nobleman who clearly doesn’t want him here, stuck following him around like a dog on a chain and behaving like one, too, from how frayed Vasco’s patience feels.

All because of one bloody Léandre d’Arcy. 

Vasco had better not run into the man; he won’t have anything nice to say if he does.

* * *

De Sardet’s distance, it seems, is solely reserved for Vasco.

It takes their little group over an hour to reach the governor’s palace, all because De Sardet insists on talking to nearly every person he comes across and Vasco, for the life of him, can’t figure out why.

“How have you been finding New Sérène so far?”

It’s a question De Sardet asks often throughout the course of the afternoon. He laughs as a group of fishermen amuse him with a story of an enormous catch that nearly broke through their boat, smiles encouragingly when the baker stammers and stutters nervously at being addressed by him, and listens attentively as the blacksmith tells him about the native merchant across the street being harassed by the Coin Guard.

“Poor lad doesn’t know the way we do things ‘round here,” the blacksmith says, shooting a somewhat hesitant look toward Kurt before he continues. “I tried talkin’ to ‘im, but I don’t think he gets it. Never heard of a permit in his life, I bet!”

“I’ll see what I can do,” De Sardet says, which is how they become roped into unwinding the bureaucratic threads that are choking an opportunity for diplomatic relations to death.

The native merchant is at once relieved and also confused at the sight of them, or namely, at the sight of De Sardet. “Beurd tir to mad, on ol menawi! Why are you dressed like this?”

De Sardet briefly lifts his hand, a reflex of his arm as if to touch on the mark on his face before he aborts the movement and shakes his head. “Hello, I’m… not one of your people.”

There’s tension lined in his shoulders. Vasco’s gaze drifts to the mark on his face, the edges of it just about visible from underneath De Sardet’s beard, the facial hair lining his jaw covering it but not completely obscuring it.

Sprouting up again like weeds the thought crosses Vasco’s mind once more, tinged with a sheer _want _for it to be over.

As a young boy he asked everyone he knew about the name the moment it appeared on his hip, all but shouted it from the top of the masts trying to find the one he was destined to be with, but nothing ever came of it.

All he got were bemused looks, sometimes bordering on pity when superior officers would look for him but come back emptyhanded, always commenting on how strange the name was until Vasco simply… stopped talking about it altogether. Threw himself into his career, became a captain and covered up the name he’d once proudly showed off on his bare midriff, hiding it underneath layers of clothes. 

But the many long nights he spent hopelessly yearning are no excuse to project his feelings onto a man who _cannot _be his soulmate. De Sardet said it himself; he’s not a native. There’s nothing more for Vasco to consider, so he uproots the weeds inside his head once more, hoping that this time they stay gone.

Meanwhile, the native merchant—Derwen, he introduces himself—explains to De Sardet about how he was sent by his village chief to trade with New Sérène, only to have the Coin Guard show up to confiscate his wares.

“Don’t worry,” De Sardet reassures the man. “I’ll clear this up for you.”

Helping Derwen is the most logical choice. It can only be advantageous for New Sérène to improve relations with the natives, and yet as Vasco follows De Sardet around while the legate tries to navigate the situation, he doesn’t get the sense that De Sardet is merely doing this because of some sort of calculation he made in his head.

He’s simply being kind.

It surprises Vasco, again and again as he watches De Sardet talk to people throughout the day. Even when they finally approach the governor’s palace and find a native woman—the daughter of a village chief, it turns out later—being held up by the guards, De Sardet halts on the stairs, turns around and heads right back down to offer her his assistance.

Vasco doesn’t understand it. Nothing he sees of De Sardet that day matches with the image of nobility he has been carrying with him all this time. In his personal experience, the aristocracy care little for those who can do nothing for them, although even those who are useful to them often don’t escape the brunt of their cruelty.

But there’s nothing cruel about De Sardet, nothing at all.

Mind only partially present as De Sardet reunites with his cousin and introduces him to Síora, Vasco’s hand wanders to his hip, pressing lightly through the coat as he listens to the sound of De Sardet’s voice, calm tones and an amiable manner like he’s completely at ease as he chats with the governor. 

At one point Vasco hears a smile in De Sardet’s words and he wonders what it would be like to get a _genuine_ smile from De Sardet, and not the painful imitations forced onto his face for Vasco’s benefit as he tried to cope with being rejected.

By the time the sun has gone down and the air has cooled into a pleasant evening breeze, De Sardet, having charmed his way into getting Derwen a permit, leads them back toward the merchant to hand it over. Síora joins them, turning their little party of three into one of four.

“It’s a safety issue, I suppose,” Kurt says as he tries to explain the concept of permits to Síora as well. “You don’t want the whole street being crowded with shady types who’ve gotten their wares from god-knows-where, especially when they’re out to scam innocent people.”

“And… a piece of paper stops that from happening?” Síora says quizzically.

“It’s- right, it sounds ridiculous, but it’s not really about the piece of paper,” Kurt admits. “It’s about what the piece of paper stands for.”

“Oh.” Síora nods like she’s understood. “So it is symbolic?”

Kurt exchanges a bemused look with Vasco.

“To be fair, that is exactly what it is,” Vasco points out, preferring to table the discussion before it gets too philosophical, not that it has a chance to with how Derwen runs up to their group the moment he spots them coming.

“You came back!” he exclaims in a panic. “Something terrible happened!”

It sends them on another search, this time for Derwen’s cousin who was arrested—Kurt sighs deeply—and thrown into prison for “disorderly conduct”, as the local quartermaster tells them.

Come to find out, Derwen’s cousin isn’t in prison at all; he’s been sent into the Coin Arena without even having been sentenced.

“Woah there!” the jailor scoffs. “Do you really think we’d organize a proper trial for a- well.” He throws a sneer in Síora’s direction. “One of _them_?”

It takes every ounce of restraint within Vasco not to break the man’s nose against his knuckles, managing to keep his cool as a frustrated De Sardet leads them back upstairs and to the tavern, paying the entry fee to the lower area to access the arena.

“What’s the plan, here?” Kurt says as they descend the stairs. “You’re gonna have a hard time getting him out of that fight, green blood.”

“I’m not getting him out of the fight,” De Sardet replies to everyone’s surprise, leading them to the bottom of the basement and looking at the hatch leading toward the Coin Arena.

“What do you mean?” Síora asks, brows furrowed.

“The simplest way to make sure Derwen’s cousin gets out of this alive is to fight alongside him.”

Hackles raising at the idea, Vasco scowls and steps in front of De Sardet, blocking his path to the hatch. “Are you joking?”

De Sardet frowns back at him. “No, I’m entirely serious.”

He tries to move past him but Vasco steps in front of him again.

“Then I have to assume you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,” Vasco says, stubborn refusal tensed in the line of his mouth. “The arena isn’t a walk in the park, prisoners die there every single day; either by the hands of others, or by being torn apart alive by wild animals. You cannot simply waltz in there—”

“With all due respect, _captain_,” De Sardet says with a sharp edge to his tone, always so patient with everyone else but apparently having nothing to spare for Vasco, “you haven’t seen me in a fight.”

“I don’t care how good you are in a fight, _legate_,” Vasco snaps back. “I’m not letting you go down there.”

De Sardet laughs, a harsh and humorless sound. “Let me? _Let me_? Who do you think you are to tell me what I can and cannot do?”

“Who do I think _I _am?” Vasco scoffs, gritting his teeth; he knows exactly who he is. “I’m your—”

_Soulmate_.

The word never leaves his lips, left hanging there as his heart beats hard against his ribs and De Sardet’s gaze cuts like the edge of ice as he leans in, a hiss against Vasco’s lips.

“You are _not _my soulmate.”

De Sardet turns away from him, walking around him and leaving Vasco standing there with the faint impression of an ache in his chest, spreading down to his hip like the name is a bruise pressed into his skin. Kurt gives a shake of his head and Síora shoots him a sympathetic look before they both follow after De Sardet, heading for the Coin Arena. 

Vasco was wrong.

De Sardet can be cruel, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story was meant to be pretty short, but i saw the opportunity to draw out the angst and i took it with both hands babey!! none of you get any apologies from me, we're here only for the pining and the denial and the self-inflicted suffering
> 
> also special thanks to @zenodraws for [this gorgeous piece of art](https://zenodraws.tumblr.com/post/188030145025/just-a-young-naut-in-search-of-his-soulmate) featuring vasco with his mark!!


	3. wicked game

Blood sport.

Tristan leaves the Coin Arena with the taste of it left in his mouth, coating his tongue with bitterness.

He is, for the most part, fine; a cut runs up the side of his forearm, torn through his sleeve, and he can feel a patchwork of bruises forming beneath the skin of his left side, but that is the extent of his injuries. He might have fractured a rib, but it’s not impeding his breathing, so Tristan elects to ignore it.

Kurt hovers, though he insists he doesn’t. Síora staunched the flow of blood from the gash on his arm earlier, the red now drying into the expensive fabric of his coat, but he refused her offer to take a look at his ribs.

He waves away their concern, leading Derwen’s cousin out to the basement of the tavern, but as soon as he ducks out of the hatch he falters in his step and comes to a halt.

Vasco is leaning against the wall right ahead of him, arms crossed over his chest. He lifts his head and turns to look—the moment Tristan catches his gaze, an image of sunlight glittering off the ocean’s surface flashes through his mind.

“Legate.” Vasco pushes off the wall, eyes flitting down to the blood soaked through Tristan’s sleeve and narrowing fractionally. “I see you survived the arena.”

Tristan eases the furrow between his brows into an unaffected mask, squares his shoulders and walks right past him. “So it seems I did, captain.”

Nothing more is said. Vasco falls into step behind him, whether committed to his admiral’s orders or simply to torment Tristan out of malice, Tristan doesn’t know. They walk the rest of the way in silence.

Derwen is overjoyed to see his cousin again, promising Tristan a reward he did not ask for by telling him to meet with his village chief. It should please him, knowing he managed to secure an impressive opportunity to further diplomatic relations with the islanders within a day of stepping foot in New Sérène, but all Tristan can think of is the man behind him, silently trailing his footsteps like chains around his ankles.

He doesn’t know what Vasco wants from him, if he wants anything at all. Tristan thought Vasco made himself perfectly clear during the journey to Teer Fradee, all but ignoring Tristan after their tense conversation in the cabin: Tristan was nothing more than a passenger on his ship, a brief acquaintance that would end the moment they touched the shore.

It makes Vasco’s behavior from earlier all the more inexplicable. The word was on the edge of his tongue, forming on his lips—_soulmate_—and something in Tristan snapped at the sight of it.

He doesn’t usually lose his temper like that, but something about Vasco has him raw and exposed, laid bare like veins and bone beneath flesh and skin.

“If we’re done here, I need to head back to the barracks,” Kurt announces once Tristan is finished talking with Derwen. “There are a few things I need to talk to the quartermaster about.”

“I’ll stay with Derwen a while longer,” Síora says, glancing over to the merchant talking animatedly with his cousin, inspecting him for any injuries. “His cousin was hit in the head pretty badly, I should make sure he’s alright.”

Tristan glances over at Vasco, who is very pointedly not looking in his direction.

“I’ll head to the inn,” Vasco decides, and it's such a transparent attempt to get away from him that Tristan finds his teeth gritting in barely suppressed frustration.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he states, immediately dismissing the idea. “My residence has plenty of guest rooms for you to make use of.”

“That’s not—”

“You’d rather pay for a room than take one being offered for free?”

Vasco glares at him for a long moment, the subtle motion of his jaw clenching drawing Tristan’s eye, the lines of his tattoos shifting on his skin atop the muscle before Vasco releases it all in a resigned sigh.

“Fine,” he snaps, averting his gaze entirely and Tristan thinks he ended up getting stuck with some sort of petulant child who hasn’t discovered the concept of honest communication yet.

Not that Tristan is any better, in that regard.

“Well,” Kurt says, exchanging a look with Síora. “Try not to kill each other.”

Tristan decides not to dignify Kurt with a reply and instead turns on his heel and paces away, done with the day and ready to see it end. He hears Vasco sigh wearily behind him as he follows Tristan along through the darkened streets of New Sérène.

It’s so much colder in the evening, unfamiliar and unwelcoming stone a mere imitation of Tristan’s home. The stars are bright and distant here, the same sky and yet different in another way Tristan can’t place, and he feels unmoored, drifting aimless and without a compass.

The fire from torchlights is reflected in the glass of a broken bottle laying on the street, drunken chants echoing against the walls, fading away as Tristan approaches the square. Vasco is as quiet as a shadow, moving with him and saying nothing though Tristan can almost sense the eyes on his back. It’s a weight, a burden that shouldn’t be, making him regret offering the room at all.

His residence is right beside the governor’s palace, a tall green door impossible to miss on its own, made even more evident by the crest hanging beside it on the wall. Tristan fishes out the key from his pocket that Constantin gave him earlier, unlocking the door and stepping into the main hall.

The place is furnished and has been kept clean, at least. The walls are bare, the fireplace cold and quiet, its emptiness pronounced when Vasco closes the door behind him.

At least out in the width of the streets Tristan could pretend they were not alone, but there is no looking away when Vasco is the only other presence in the confines of the room.

Thankfully, it doesn’t remain that way.

A servant appears from a door on the left, bowing hurriedly and welcoming Tristan to his new residence. They get a fire going thanks to the servant who also lights a few additional candles, assuring Tristan his bedroom has been readied for his arrival. Vasco stands off to the side, declining to hand off his coat and not even so much as taking his hat off, a stranger in someone else’s home, a visitor not meant to stay.

Tristan doesn’t want to look at him anymore.

“Bennet, was it?” he addresses the servant. “Why don’t you show the captain here to a guest room?”

“Of course, my lord.”

Vasco glances from the servant to Tristan, opening his mouth with a frown and Tristan thinks he’s going to argue, but the next moment he snaps his lips shut instead.

“If you would follow me, sir?” Bennet offers politely, leading Vasco into a corridor as the both of them disappear from sight.

The moment they’re gone Tristan releases a breath and all but collapses into an armchair in front of the fireplace. He rolls up the torn and bloodied sleeve of his coat to look at his injury, but as always his gaze falls on the name marked on the inner side of his wrist first.

The cut is on the side of his arm, avoiding most of his veins, but it runs toward the mark. Tristan did not even bother to bandage it after Síora stopped the bleeding with her magic. The sting of it blends oddly with the heat glowing in his mark.

Léandre.

Vasco.

Tristan leans his head against the backrest of his chair and closes his eyes. Physically, he’s fatigued. Emotionally, he is _drained_.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, taking solace in the warmth radiating from the fire onto his face, but it feels like hours have passed when the door to the western corridor opens. Assuming it’s Bennet, Tristan doesn’t bother to open his eyes, having half a mind to fall asleep like this when footsteps approach his chair, ending right beside it.

Reluctantly, Tristan cracks his eyelids open, turning to face Bennet—except, that’s not Bennet.

It’s Vasco, hat and coat off, leaving him in a plain undershirt. He looks strangely vulnerable without the layers of his outerwear on, though his expression is closed off as he gazes down at Tristan.

Tristan’s eyes catch on the tattoos that run down his throat, over his collar bones and slipping beneath the shirt where they continue on his chest.

Swallowing thickly, Tristan averts his stare to the fireplace instead.

It takes a moment for his throat to start working.

“Did you need something?”

There’s no reply from Vasco, at least not a verbal one.

To Tristan’s bemusement, Vasco steps in front of his armchair and kneels down, setting aside a roll of gauze and a bottle of liquid Tristan hadn’t even noticed he had with him before. He reaches out and grabs hold of Tristan’s wounded arm with a firm but surprisingly gentle grip. It reminds Tristan of the way Vasco held his wrist back on the ship, the memory bringing with it a twinge in his chest, aching like something sharp between his ribs.

“Síora already healed it,” Tristan says quietly to Vasco, who ignores him and delicately rolls up his torn sleeve to look at the gash.

His dark brows furrow at the sight of it, and he picks up the bottle he brought with him, but Tristan thinks he sees him glancing at the name on his wrist, too. It’s quick, so quick Tristan wonders if he imagined it, a trick of the flames reflected in Vasco’s eyes.

“Would you rather let it fester?” Vasco remarks as he uncorks the bottle, picking up some cotton to wet it with. “There are some things even magic can’t heal, Your Excellency.”

“Don’t call me that.”

It slips from Tristan's mouth before he can help it, and Vasco pauses to look up at him. His fingers are warm on Tristan’s skin, eyes bright in the firelight, lips parted the slightest bit in surprise and Tristan wants to kiss him.

He doesn’t.

After a moment, Vasco scowls and shakes his head, looking down at Tristan’s arm again. “You can’t have it both ways.”

He presses the cotton onto Tristan’s wound and Tristan hisses from the pain, even though he expected it. Vasco continues to clean it, dabbing at the torn skin with care while Tristan watches and bears with it. Next come the bandages, wrapped expertly around his arm and tied up in no time at all.

Task completed, Vasco makes to get up to his feet, and Tristan—cursed, traitorous hand that he has—grabs him by the shoulder, stopping him.

Vasco stares up at him, flustered, but makes no move to shake him off.

“What do you want?” Tristan asks, didn’t mean to sound so desperate but it leaks through into his voice, into his fingers as they squeeze around the bone of Vasco’s shoulder. “What do you want from me, Vasco?”

The beat of his heart fills the silence between them, pounding too quickly for Tristan to count, dropping for one horrible moment when Vasco looks away.

“I don’t know.”

“You said—” Tristan almost falters, fingertips digging into Vasco’s skin and Vasco doesn’t move, keeps kneeling there with his head lowered, not meeting his eyes. “You said you never heard of the name Léandre before.”

“I haven’t.”

Tristan grabs Vasco’s other shoulder, less to hold him and more to cling to him, needing something, _anything_.

“Then why do I feel like this?” Tristan says, pain in his voice as he pleads for an answer and Vasco is still not looking at him. “Why do I want—”

His eyes fall on Vasco’s lips at the same time Vasco looks up to face him, and it burns in him, burns in his wrist, hotter than the flames in the fireplace. Against all his sense and rationality, Tristan wants.

When he looks up to meet Vasco’s eyes, Vasco surges forward.

Hands in his coat press him back into his chair, Tristan’s heart skipping a beat as Vasco leans over him, close enough for their noses to brush, close enough for their breaths to mingle. Vasco’s exhales are hot and heavy against his lips like he’s on the verge of something, swaying on an edge while Tristan remains perfectly still.

He could lean in, Tristan thinks, dazed. He could close the distance. He could—

Vasco suddenly reaches down, hand curling tightly around Tristan’s wrist, fingers closing around his mark and Tristan’s breath catches.

“I can’t,” Vasco whispers, voice hoarse. His hand clenches almost painfully around Tristan’s mark as if trying to make the name disappear, and then he releases it, pulls away from Tristan’s armchair entirely.

Tristan watches numbly as Vasco turns his back on him, leaning his forearms against the mantle of the fireplace.

His voice is cold, almost bitter. “I’m not Léandre.”

“You say that,” Tristan speaks, that urge to cling to Vasco again as he gets up to his feet, “but how do you know?”

Vasco turns to face him, expression twisted with ire, accusatory. “You told me I wasn’t your soulmate.”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Tristan admits, regret filling him as he recalls his outburst, his shoulders deflating. “I was angry, I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s—!” Vasco is speechless for a moment, so frustrated he can barely manage to speak, whether with Tristan or himself Tristan doesn’t know. “You should have meant it, because you were right! We’re not soulmates!”

Tristan sucks in a breath, like a punch to the gut, but he grits his teeth through it. “Then why are you so upset?”

Vasco crosses his arms, expression shuttering. “I’m not.”

“Tell me what your birth name is,” Tristan demands. “If it’s not Léandre—”

“I don’t know what it is!” Vasco erupts, then paces away toward the corridor, and Tristan follows him. “But whatever it is, it’s not Léandre, because _you’re not Drust_!”

Tristan stands still.

“Prove it.”

Vasco freezes with his hand on the doorknob to his room. He looks up at Tristan, his eyes wide.

“Prove that you’re not Léandre,” Tristan continues, daring to hope. “There has to be a way to find out your birth name, right?”

Something in Vasco’s face hardens, anger lined in his brow.

“Fine,” he spits. “_Fine_!”

He walks into his room and slams the door behind him.

Tristan sags against the wall, exhausted.

At least he’ll have his answer soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to chris isaak for giving me the perfect song to write to
> 
> listen, i was not planning on it being like this, i swear i thought they'd get along better by this point but now they hate each other i guess! fuckin!! great job me!!


	4. broken promises

It settles beneath Vasco’s skin like something that festers, pouring into his veins and infecting his blood, spreading through his body with every beat of his heart before it finally finds him in his dreams.

_Longing._

He’s a young boy, climbing up the shrouds of his ship when he turns to look at the view and sees the world through the eyes of a bird. It’s an endless horizon of sea below him, depthless and dizzying in its magnitude, too much for him to comprehend. The sun shimmers off the gentle waves, sea on sky, blue on blue. He falls in love with it.

Then, his ship starts to sink.

Vasco looks below him at the rising water, but feels no fear. He is strangely tranquil as the ship below him disappears beneath while he waits for the water reach his feet, but once it does, Vasco does not sink.

The waves disappear, smoothing out into something unnaturally tranquil, and the sea is solid ground. Vasco stands, as if on a mirror, and watches the tops of the masts disappear with the rest of the ship without a single sound. Around him is nothing but miles of ocean on every side, dark waters and bright skies.

His fingers rub over the name on his hip, and he wonders what it would be like to sink.

Turning in a circle, Vasco searches, not sure what he’s searching for until he spots a dot of black and brown in the distance, standing out sharply against the backdrop of blue.

Having nowhere else to go and nothing else to do in this strange world, Vasco walks toward it.

His strides cross more distance than should be possible, as if the sea were carrying him along, and soon the dot becomes a figure, the frame of a man standing in the middle of the ocean all by himself. Vasco notices the captain’s uniform the man is wearing, growing more and more familiar the closer he gets until the face comes into focus and he finally realizes who it is.

Vasco, a child, stares up at Vasco, a man.

Two halves of a whole, separated like a mirror of sea and sky. They stare at each other in silence, until the child finally speaks.

“Did you find him?”

The man does not know how to answer, so he averts his eyes. When his gaze touches the water below him, a ripple shudders through the water, as if the ocean itself spoke with condemnation at his hesitance.

His feet start to sink.

The man panics. “No!”

“Don’t be afraid,” the child tells him as he struggles, legs slowly going under. “I always wondered what it would be like.”

“I don’t want to sink,” the man says, chest heaving with his frantic breaths as he sinks further, past his hips, hands trying to find purchase on the surface of the water but having naught to hold onto. “I’ll drown! I’ll drown, and then—"

“You’ll be alright,” the child says as the water reaches the man’s chest, sinking him faster, up to his neck now. “We’ll be alright.”

Finally his head goes under, swallowed up by the gaping maw of a dark, unfathomable world.

A forceful current drags at Vasco’s legs, pulling him into its depths with greedy hands. He fights it, tries to swim against it until his muscles seize up from exhaustion and he thinks he’s going to die here, never to see the horizon again.

But when he looks up where the sun breaks through the surface of the water, he sees someone swimming down toward him, hand outstretched.

There’s a name written on the inner side of his wrist:

_**Vasco**_

He grasps the hand like it’s his lifeline and suddenly he can breathe again, looking up at his savior’s face only to lose all the air in his lungs when he sees who it is.

Eyes brown like whiskey, warming the sea.

Tristan smiles tenderly as he pulls Vasco into his embrace, the only anchor Vasco has and so he goes willingly, wrapping his arms around Tristan’s neck as they stare into each other’s eyes.

They sink together, but Vasco isn’t afraid anymore.

Tristan’s hand slides down between them, pressing over the name on Vasco’s hip through the coat, and Vasco somehow knows, instinctively, that the name has changed as Tristan rests his hand over it. Or perhaps changed is the wrong term. Perhaps it is what it always was.

_**Tristan De Sardet**_

“I was always yours,” Tristan whispers to him softly as the water around them grows darker, until all the light is gone and there is nothing, no sun and no sky and no sea.

Nothing but Tristan, holding him.

Vasco sucks in a breath, water flooding his lungs and he’s drowning but somehow it doesn’t hurt.

“And I yours.”

_Always longing._

Tristan leans in, his chaste kiss nothing but a tender brush that tingles pleasantly before he pulls away, but Vasco wants more so he kisses Tristan back, captures his lips as his hunger grows fangs. He sinks deeper into the sea, into Tristan, into his arms and his mouth, never sated.

“Vasco,” Tristan gasps against him, hands tightening around Vasco’s back, an exhale that turns into a groan from deep within his throat when Vasco bites into his lower lip. “_Vasco_.”

_God, but the longing. _

Tristan’s hands are all over him, taking his coat off, slipping beneath his shirt, against his skin and making Vasco feverish with heat. Their kisses turn ravenous, bordering on desperate and Vasco is starving for more as he arches up against Tristan.

Knowing exactly what he needs, Tristan’s hand shifts from Vasco’s hip to cup his groin and Vasco’s blood is on fire. He needs it, he _needs_—

His hip burns; his dream ends.

Vasco is only half awake, very little awareness of anything but the pressure of the sheets against his erection through his briefs, where he ruts mindlessly against the mattress, not thinking beyond his need for release.

Disoriented and dazed, craving like he’s never done before, Vasco turns over onto his back and slips his fingers into his briefs. He squeezes his eyes shut against the morning sun shining through the slit between the curtains as he wraps his hand around his hardened shaft, and with a pleased sigh he finishes what his dream started.

His strokes are tight and fast; dangling on the cusp as he already is it doesn’t take him much time at all. All he has to do is thumb at the name glowing hot on his hip as his mind lingers on his dream, on the way Tristan gasped his name, the hot and wet slide of their tongues as Tristan palmed him through his trousers—

Vasco’s wrist moves even faster, the nail of his thumb dragging over his bondmark and he comes, muscles locking up with a breathless groan caught in his throat. It shudders up his core, hips bucking, back arching as cum splatters over his stomach and drips down his fingers as he squeezes out every last drop. He pumps himself raw until it edges into painful and he has to pull his hand off, letting out a deep exhale that leaves his body limp.

He stays on the bed, quietly enjoying the aftermath of a perfect orgasm—as perfect as pleasuring himself can get him—until his rational thought gradually seeps in through the haze of lingering bliss.

When Vasco finally realizes what he’s done he bolts up, sitting upright on the bed with his eyes wide in horror and his heart pounding, fingers still stained with his own slick clenching into the bedsheets.

He looks down at the name on his hip, nausea rolling in his gut as _Drust _stares back up at him in silent accusation.

“No.” Vasco covers his eyes with his other hand, breaths coming out heavy. “No, no, no, _no_! Fuck!”

A knock on his door startles him.

“Captain Vasco?” the servant from last night—Bennet, his addled mind supplies—calls for him. “Is everything alright, sir?”

Vasco takes a deep breath through his nose, sickened by his own body.

“Fine,” he calls out, voice rough in his throat, hopefully in a way that would be mistaken for sleep and not for the crippling guilt in his bones.

“I see.” Bennet does not sound entirely convinced, but appears too polite to press him on the issue. “Breakfast will be served shortly, sir.” 

“Is…” It takes a moment for his throat to work. “Will De Sardet be there?”

“No, sir,” Bennet answers, and Vasco closes his eyes in relief as the tension in his shoulders eases slightly. “Lord De Sardet left early this morning; he will be having breakfast with his cousin, the lord governor.”

Enough time for Vasco to get his shit together, then.

“Thank you, Bennet.”

Vasco asks for his bedsheets to be cleaned later before he dismisses the servant, sitting there on his bed as the sunlight feels oppressive against his bare back, the skin covered in a thin layer of sweat. His grip on his blanket turns his knuckles white as he sits there, and he knows that no matter what his admiral says, this cannot go on.

It’s his own weakness to blame. He retained a steadfast distance between himself and De Sardet during the voyage to Teer Fradee, which was easier when he had other things to focus on, when he had his crew around him to anchor him.

But here? On land, away from his ship, away from his crew, his life suddenly revolving around the one man he was trying so hard to avoid? It’s no different from supplying the finest bottle of liquor to a man hungering for drink when he’s desperately trying to stay sober. 

A single day has passed and already Vasco is coming apart at the seams, completely unraveling in a way he never has before, and it frightens him because he broke the promise he made to stay true, to stay faithful, and in doing so he _betrayed_—

Vasco covers the name with his palm, not to seek comfort or to soothe the yearning in him as he would normally do, but because he can’t stand to look at it anymore.

He betrayed his soulmate.

* * *

“You seem a little pale today, cousin,” Constantin remarks from across the dinner table laden with dishes for breakfast, eyeing Tristan with some concern.

Ironic, considering the dark circles under Constantin’s own eyes.

Tristan manages a smile, though he can tell it comes across as weak from how Constantin’s worried expression does not change.

“I’ve yet to grow used to the climate, so I’m afraid I didn’t catch much sleep.”

“Ah, we are in the same predicament, then.” The furrow in Constantin’s brows eases as he gives Tristan a sympathetic look.

“You’ve had trouble sleeping?” Tristan glances down at the untouched plate of bread and cheese in front of Constantin. “And eating.”

“It is nothing to worry yourself over,” Constantin is quick to assure him, taking a pointed sip from his tea—solely for Tristan’s benefit, Tristan presumes—before changing the topic. “Let us speak of more pleasant things! How fare things with your sailor, hmm?”

Tristan, who was in the middle of lifting his own cup to his lips, freezes mid-movement to look at Constantin, eyes wide over the rim of his cup. “My…? He’s not _my _sailor, Constantin.”

Remembering the argument he and Vasco had last night, Tristan puts his cup down without drinking from it. His appetite has left him. Constantin is silent across from him, waiting for his question to be answered, but Tristan does not know what he can say to satisfy his cousin’s curiosity. None of the responses he has are pleasant ones. 

“We agreed to find out his birth name,” he speaks at length, deciding on a more factual answer as Constantin looks at him in surprise. “It’s the only way to be certain.”

“You do not seem pleased about this plan,” Constantin notes, leaning back into his chair and studying him intently, trying to read his face. “I would think such an idea would be at least _some _cause for excitement?” 

Constantin is not wrong. Last night had Tristan so caught up in the idea of Vasco being his soulmate that he hadn’t been thinking clearly. He was swept away by the torrent of emotions that flooded him when imagining that he at long last found his other half, the man he was supposed to share the rest of his life with.

The implications of what it might mean for _himself _had escaped Tristan completely, until he woke up that morning with a name lingering in the back of his mind.

Drust.

“If I am his soulmate,” Tristan speaks slowly, almost reluctantly, but he needs someone else’s insight and he trusts no one more than Constantin with a matter so close to his heart. “If we truly have each other’s names on our skin, then… Constantin, that would mean my birth name is not Tristan, but a different name. A name native to the island.”

Constantin pauses, staring at Tristan as a frown grows on his face and he too appears to understand what that would mean; not simply for Tristan, but for the natives and the whole island of Teer Fradee.

“A native name? But that’s…”

His gaze shifts to the mark on Tristan’s face, carefully but not entirely hidden away beneath his beard.

“You understand why I’m conflicted,” Tristan says as he lets Constantin mull over it. “It shouldn’t be possible. No one knew about the island before I was born, or at least, as far as we know.”

“Ah.” Constantin seems briefly troubled, tapping a finger on the arm of his chair as he thinks for a while longer. Finally, he says, “I have to admit, I have never heard of anything that would imply the continent knew about the island before the initial attempts at colonization. None of this makes sense.”

He catches Tristan’s eyes again, and something in Tristan’s face—perhaps his exhaustion, a palpable weight on his shoulders—makes him quickly shift the tone of the conversation again.

“I cannot even imagine the turmoil you must be going through, dear cousin.” Constantin reaches out across the table, hand on top of Tristan’s wrist to give him a comforting squeeze. “Whatever happens, I am certain you will figure it out. Tell me, all the gravity of the situation aside, how are the two of you getting along? You and _your sailor_, that is.”

Tristan suppresses the urge to groan at Constantin’s insistence on the term, and considering the mirth in Constantin’s eyes as he pulls away again he knows exactly what he’s doing, too.

“If you are hoping for a love story for the ages, I implore you to look elsewhere,” Tristan replies, his weary words followed by a long-suffering sigh. “Suffice it to say that he hates me.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd!” Constantin protests with such fervor one would think he was the one being insulted. “Who could ever hate you?”

“I may have worded that a bit theatrically,” Tristan admits, remembering the way Vasco clung to his wrist, like an imprint left on his skin where his mark prickles. “I think… perhaps it would be more apt to say he hates what he feels for me.”

Constantin leans in over the table with an eager look spurring Tristan on, reminding him a little of the bedtime stories Tristan used to make up for him as children, when Constantin could not fall asleep.

“Go on!” Constantin urges enthusiastically. “The connection is a romantic one, then, isn’t it? I knew it would be!”

“You did not _know_,” Tristan rebukes, hiding his embarrassment with a cool, if somewhat stiff, composure. “I do not even know with certainty if he is my soulmate yet. It’s far too premature to comment on the nature of our bond, let alone—”

A sudden heat flashes through his wrist, sizzling up his arm and into his shoulder like a lightning strike. Tristan is paralyzed for an instant, but then quickly tugs his sleeve down to look at the name.

“Tristan?”

Nothing about the ink has changed; it looks the same as it always does. Tristan shakes his head and pulls his sleeve up again, dismissing the odd sensation.

“Can we speak of other things?” he asks Constantin, feeling very much in need of a distraction.

Constantin nods, understanding. “Of course. Perhaps you’d like to hear about all the nobles who came to grovel at my feet after I arrived at the palace with Lady Morange? It made for quite the sight, I wish you would have been here to see it! Even Duke Aubert’s oldest daughter—you remember her, the one with the assortment of frilly hats for every occasion? Well, when _she _walked in…”

Listening to Constantin as he tells his stories, Tristan can almost forget about the lingering warmth in his wrist as he smiles at his cousin’s amusing little anecdotes. 

The reprieve is fleeting, but he enjoys it while it lasts.

* * *

Vasco arrives at the docks like storm sweeping through the streets, finding Admiral Cabral behind her desk in quiet discussion with another Naut—his fleet commander, he recognizes—though they both pause and look at him as he heads straight for them.

The admiral dismisses the fleet commander, a deep wrinkle etched between her eyes but otherwise unaffected by his wild appearance as he stands still in front of her desk. She folds her hands atop the wood, peering up at him with an inscrutable gaze.

“Captain Vasco.”

He halts, years of discipline now a rope around his neck, cutting off the words he wants to scream at her because he wouldn’t be in this situation were it not for her, and yet he cannot.

“Admiral.” Taking a moment to simply breathe, Vasco clenches and unclenches his fingers, attempting to force some semblance of composure into his tensed limbs. Instead of the accusation he has nocked on the bed of his tongue like an arrow he wants to loose, what comes out is a quiet, “I- cannot follow your orders.”

The admiral looks wholly unsurprised by this turn of events as she leans back into her chair, regarding him coolly. “Your reason being?”

Vasco feels the repercussions of marching down here without a plan in mind as he stands there in silence, but he is nothing if not quick on his feet.

“De Sardet and I have irreconcilable differences,” he finally says, settling on evasive but grave. “Ones that I find have already affected my judgment. I do not believe I am the right person to offer him my assistance.”

His reply is but a stare, the admiral’s piercing eyes near to making him falter, but Vasco cannot back down now. Not without losing face.

So he stands there, and he waits.

After what feels like an eternity, the admiral rises from her chair.

“Follow,” is all she says before she disappears through the door into her office.

Ah, hell, he’s done it now.

With the reluctance of a man headed for the gallows, Vasco falls in line behind her. The sound of the door falling shut behind him as he enters her office—one that seems to double as a study of sorts—is not unlike the sound of a wooden lever pulled to drop the hatch beneath his feet.

The admiral does not sit on her chair but stands in the center of the room, leaving Vasco crowded against the door as he waits.

She sighs, and turns around to face him with disappointment painted across her face.

Vasco averts his gaze. This is much worse than being chewed out.

She gives him a measured look, trying to gauge him. “What is it about De Sardet that has you running scared?”

“I—” Vasco only barely bites back the protest in his mouth. “I cannot say.”

“You cannot, or you will not?”

He can’t tell her about De Sardet’s insistence on them being soulmates, can’t tell her about the name on De Sardet’s wrist, and so he answers her with another question.

“Why is De Sardet so important to the Nauts?” Her expression does not change, but perhaps it is the stiffness in her features that gives Vasco a thread to hold onto as he presses forward. “You would not remove a captain from his ship just to shadow him if he wasn’t. So, who is he to us?”

“That is not for you to know, Vasco.”

He lets out a bitter laugh, tiptoeing the line of decorum. “Of course.”

“You and De Sardet had a falling out, I presume,” she continues, ignoring his blunt remark. “I understand you have never harbored any fondness for nobility, but you must set that aside.”

Unbelievable. Does she think so little of him, so readily accepting the idea that a mere nobleman would be enough to have him tucking his tail between his legs and abandoning his orders? De Sardet being a prince’s nephew is the least of his concerns!

It’s the names, it’s the _fucking _names that have been haunting him, on a wrist and on a hip, always in the back of his mind.

“This isn’t about him being a noble!” Vasco starts to pace the room, his conscience dug into his skin like claws on his back when he remembers that morning, feels like he’s going out of his mind. “I wouldn’t _be here _if it was, but the way things are now, I cannot- nay, I _refuse _to—”

“Vasco,” Admiral Cabral interrupts him, her expression eased into something like concern and he does not have to wonder why; she has never seen him like this. No one has, because he’s never felt like this before, this frayed and fragile. “What is it that you want?”

Vasco stops his pacing, looking up at the admiral once more as he takes a deep breath.

“My name,” he says, heart a hummingbird against his ribs. “My birth name.”

Whatever the admiral had been expecting, from the way her eyes widen slightly, it is not that. But the hard lines in her face soften as she peers at him.

“I knew you would want to find out,” she speaks, lowering herself into an armchair, weariness in her posture as she leans her elbows on her knees. “Sooner rather than later, too. You were never one to be patient, even as a boy.”

“If I was, I wouldn’t have made it to captain at my age,” Vasco replies, a hint of wryness to his voice, calmer and steadier now that he has finally asked what he’s been wanting to ever since he saw the name inked on De Sardet’s wrist.

It doesn’t stop his heart from pounding, but at least he has taken his first step.

“True enough.” The admiral gazes down at the floorboards for a moment. “You know the rules, Vasco. I cannot tell you until you become a fleet commander.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

She looks at him as if she can see exactly what’s going through his mind, then suddenly stands from her chair and walks over to her desk. She opens a journal on a blank page, ripping out a bit of paper, then takes her pen and bends over to write something down, blowing on it to let the ink dry before she folds the slip of paper in half.

From across the desk, she holds it out to him.

Vasco’s pulse beats in his throat as he stares at it, his mouth dry.

“Take it.”

His arm is like lead, a subtle tremble in his fingers as he reaches out and takes the piece of paper. Slowly, he opens it and looks at the name.

Then wishes he hadn’t.

* * *

A short while after Vasco has walked out the door of her office, leaving Cabral alone with her thoughts, one of her subordinates knocks and enters next. It is the fleet commander she was conversing with earlier before Vasco interrupted them.

Commander Arturo finishes up his report of the happenings of the week, but even after Cabral dismisses him, he lingers.

“I saw Captain Vasco staring at a name written on some paper on my way here,” he says, leading in his curious question. “Was that…?”

“His name, yes.”

Arturo tilts his head slightly, brows pulling together in a frown. “His fake one.”

He is the only other person aware of the lie aside from the admiral herself, being Vasco’s direct superior, though Vasco tends to deal more with Cabral due to their familiarity with each other.

“Is it really alright to falsify someone’s birth name like that?” Arturo continues, clearly having taken a disliking at the secret. “His family—”

“It was at the request of his family that we keep his real name from him,” the admiral responds dispassionately. “He was a mere child back then, but Lord d’Arcy insisted. For what reason, I could not say. The deal was not made by me, though I am obligated to uphold it.”

The entire ordeal had been cause for a lot of commotion among the higher ranked Nauts; to call it a controversial decision would be putting it mildly, even if it gave them considerable leverage over one of the noble houses in the Merchants Congregation. Cabral herself was only informed of it a few years later, after she first became admiral and Vasco was one of the many put under her command. Rumor had it at the time that Prince d’Orsay himself had been behind the push for it, putting pressure on the d’Arcys to make certain the secret was kept, but no one had any inkling as to why. 

It is all very peculiar, even years later.

There is the risk that Vasco will eventually find out the truth, or rather, there’s no doubt in Cabral’s mind that he will. Even though his true name is written in another register, one hidden away in a place unbeknownst to everyone save the admiral and her fleet commander, she is certain this will come back to bite them, if it hasn’t already.

It being a lie is the only thing that allowed her to give him the name at all, as it could not be considered a violation of the rules by doing so. Vasco is surely clever enough to recognize that inconsistency, once the shock passes.

Cabral wonders why seeing his name had him so shaken in the first place. A suspicion starts to form in her mind, one she lingers on for a while before Arturo breaks the silence again.

“How did he react?”

She looks up at him sharply. “What?” 

“Vasco,” Arturo clarifies. “How did he react when you gave him the name? When I passed him on my way here, he… did not look well.”

Cabral averts her gaze.

“Back to your duties, commander,” she says instead, and this time Arturo complies with her dismissal.

Vasco went so pale so quickly, she remembers, the lines of his tattoos almost contrasting its black on white. With a distant gaze, his eyes unseeing, he tucked the paper into his pocket and left without a word, the door closing shut behind him.

It is the only thing that sows doubt in her mind about what she’s doing and whether any of it is right, her obligations be damned:

She has never seen a man so heartbroken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't you just love writing jerk off sessions that make everything worse to emphasize the gutpunch at the end of a chapter? no?? just me?? liars
> 
> i did warn y'all this fic turned longer than i expected; don't blame me, blame the Slow Burn tag


	5. unspoken

Tristan stares down at the folded note in his hand, brows furrowing in confusion.

He looks up at Vasco whose eyes are aimed to the side and to the floor, avoiding Tristan’s searching gaze. The gold in them, usually so sharp, seems impossibly rusted now.

The sun doesn’t reach this part of Tristan’s residence, leaving the parlor feeling colder than the rest of the house. Its distant glow of light warms over the end of the street, the only source of illumination that leaves much of the room cast in gray shadows.

Perhaps that’s why Vasco appears so pale, his eyes so dark.

“Is this…” Tristan’s voice falters almost suddenly when the thought occurs to him, as if someone were pinching his vocal cords, had gripped his heart as it struggles to beat in his chest.

Vasco says nothing; the name on Tristan’s wrist is cold.

He doesn’t want to look.

Tristan crumples the note in his fist, trembling as the blunt edges of his nails dig crescent shapes into his palm. This finally draws Vasco’s eyes to his face, slightly wide with his brows drawn together.

“You—” Vasco’s voice is hoarse while he reaches up as if to grab Tristan’s arm, but he aborts the movement halfway, hand left hanging in the air before it slowly lowers back down to his side. “Read it. Please."

Tristan lets the crumpled paper drop to the floor as he stares back at Vasco, vision blurring.

“Why?” he says, breaks his voice on the word like something brittle snapping, shattering. Fingers dig into his lungs, through the gaps between his ribs, pressing through his chest. “I know what it says. What it doesn’t say. You’re not… you’re…”

A humorless laugh escapes his mouth, half a sob as he covers his eyes with his hand but can’t prevent the tears from falling down his lashes. The humiliation of it is painful enough, but what’s worse is the image of his uncle’s face in his mind, sneering at him for even having tried at all. For daring to have hoped.

He sucks in a shaky breath, quickly wipes away his tears. Back straight, shoulders squared, chin up, and the ache buried somewhere deep within.

“It seems I’ve made a fool of myself,” Tristan speaks, pauses just to breathe again and steady himself, but he can’t smooth out the cracks, splitting too wide for him to fix. He drapes a veil over it, hiding it from sight. “You have my sincerest apologies, Vasco, I should’ve never—”

Vasco wraps his hand around the back of Tristan’s neck and yanks him forward. Their bodies collide, chest to chest as Vasco catches Tristan in his arms, wrapped tightly around him and Tristan loses his breath.

“I’m sorry,” Vasco whispers, strained, and Tristan can’t tell who’s clinging to who as his fingers clutch at Vasco’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Tristan.”

It’s the first time he has heard Vasco say his name, the first time Vasco has heard Tristan do the same, but it doesn’t matter. They don’t belong to each other.

Tristan tries to take comfort in knowing that his soulmate is still out there somewhere, but it’s so hard when everything inside him is _screaming _that it’s Vasco, that it has to be Vasco. He doesn’t even want to look at Vasco’s real name, doesn’t want to know it; it would hurt too much, thinking that that same name is written on someone else’s body.

He has to move on from this. Take his loss as it is, no matter how painful, and let Vasco go.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Tristan finally says when he has confidence in his composure again, gently pulling away from Vasco’s embrace to look at him. “Forgive me for taking this moment from you. Here you are having discovered your birth name, and yet I’m making it all about me. You must feel relieved, perhaps a sense of closure to know who your blood relatives are?”

A complicated expression crosses Vasco’s face, frowning deeply at Tristan before he lowers his head, shadows falling over his eyes.

“No,” he says quietly. “Not at all. I admit, I’ve always wondered about my parents, but it seems so insignificant now. What do I care for two strangers who saw fit to give me away when the name they gave me—”

Vasco falls silent, jaw clenching. He takes a deep breath, looking up to meet Tristan’s gaze before he finishes his sentence.

“When the name they gave me isn’t the one written on your wrist?”

Tristan’s chest tightens and aches, so deeply he could mistake it for a mortal wound, but he grits his teeth and he pushes through it. The alternative is too painful.

“We need to move on from this, Vasco.” His expression is beseeching, almost pleading as he looks at Vasco, voice softened. “Can we not start over?”

It is a lot to ask, he knows that, and he doesn’t begrudge Vasco for the disbelief that flashes across his face.

“And forget that you- that I—” He struggles with his words, shaking his head and burying his face in his gloved hands.

Tristan watches the subtle lift of his shoulders as he breathes, before he straightens up again. There’s nothing left of emotion in his eyes, features closed off just like when they first met.

“If that’s what you want.”

* * *

Vasco cannot get out of the building fast enough. As soon as his conversation with Tristan draws to an end he excuses himself, not wanting to look at Tristan’s face anymore as he throws the front door shut behind him and moves across the cobblestone streets straight toward the Coin Tavern.

Starting over, Tristan called it. Vasco almost scoffs at the notion; how can they possibly pretend as if the past two days never happened? As if there exists nothing but a professional understanding between them? Tristan may have lived his life wearing masks, but Vasco hasn’t. He does not intend on putting one on any time soon.

If Tristan wants to act as if he feels nothing for Vasco, so be it. Vasco won’t. He _can’t_.

It’s late in the afternoon when Vasco reaches the tavern, people gradually trickling inside as the evening nears. He chooses a table for himself in the very corner, with a view of both the stairs leading down to the basement as well as the entrance, allowing him to observe the tavern with ease.

Tristan mentioned he would be spending the rest of the day making the rounds through the social circles of aristocracy that has concentrated itself in New Sérène, namely the wealthier merchants. Tomorrow morning he will depart with Kurt and Síora to stop a war from breaking out between colonizers and natives, and he expects Vasco to come along.

That gives him less than a day to rebalance, to refocus.

His gaze drifts across the growing crowd inside the building, desperate to find something to keep him occupied. His eyes land on the bar where the innkeeper, reticent man that he is, keeps to himself as he cleans the glasses and ignores the chatty attempts of patrons to coax rumor out of him. One man flashes him a bit of coin, and the innkeeper perks up with attention.

It’s called the Coin Tavern for a reason, Vasco supposes, catching the attention of one of the workers carrying a tray of drinks to another table. The ale here goes down about well as one would expect; calling it swill would be generous. The whiskey, however, is much better as well as more expensive. The bite of it is just what he needs to keep his mind off things.

An exercise in futility, as it turns out.

Vasco gets his drink, but instead of knocking it back as he wanted, he ends up staring into it, lost in thought.

As much as he dedicates himself to the Nauts, he will never be able to move past the fact that it has never been his choice, but something that was decided for him. Climbing the ranks as he did was his way of making sense of it, of gaining some small measure of control back from the forces that took it from him.

The only thing that truly belongs to him is the name on his hip. One might find it odd that he so readily accepted it when it was fate that made yet another choice for him, but Vasco has never seen it that way. The name itself _is_ a choice to him, the only one he’s ever truly had.

He can chase it, or he can leave it be.

When he chose to chase it and could not find his soulmate growing up, he latched onto the idea of his parentage instead, always wondering who they were.

It’s almost a contradiction, to want to be tied down in this way when he loves soaring free in equal measure, but in the end, he supposes what he truly longs for is someone to share it with. What does his freedom matter when he’s all alone in it?

Tristan insisted it was him Vasco could share it with, before his hopes were dashed by that thrice-damned piece of paper handed to Vasco by his admiral.

Does Vasco still chase it, when he feels so strongly for another? Soulmates do not have to be romantic, though it is the most common kind of bond and Vasco always envisioned it that way for himself when he dreamed about it. He’s not so sure anymore. What if Drust expects it to be romantic? What will he do then?

It’s a choice, Vasco reminds himself. He doesn’t _have_ to do anything, and being bonded to someone doesn’t _have_ to mean anything. It affects everyone differently; he has heard of some within the Nauts who have rejected their bondmarks altogether, tattooed over the name and chosen to live like those who are unmarked.

Does he want to do the same?

Vasco takes a swig of his drink. He hates the taste, but he keeps going, forcing it down his throat until his frustration spreads like a blanket to cover the ache beneath; he can’t stop fucking thinking about the color of Tristan’s eyes and it’s driving him mad.

Whiskey was a poor choice.

He slams his empty cup back down onto the table, breathing out deeply, the air almost catching in his throat when he remembers the way Tristan’s hand trembled around the piece of paper.

“Vasco!”

A familiar voice cuts through his thoughts, making Vasco look up and arch his brows in surprise at the person awkwardly pushing their way through the tavern’s clientele to get to his table.

Síora sits down across from him with a sigh, looking entirely out of her element.

“What are you doing here?” Vasco asks, tilting his head slightly with a puzzled look, and Síora gives him an embarrassed smile.

“I wished to explore the city.” She glances around the tavern, uncertain but fascinated all the same before she turns back to Vasco. “What about you?”

Vasco lifts his—now empty—cup, but Síora gives him a considering look.

“Maybe it’s not my place,” she starts hesitantly, “but you seem… unhappy, sitting here all alone.”

“More than usual?” Vasco mocks himself bitterly, though that softens into amusement when Síora looks unsure on how to respond. He’s about to tell her not to worry about it, when an idea crosses his mind. “I’d like to ask you something, actually.”

Síora nods. “Okay.” 

“I’ve heard that islanders don’t have bondmarks,” Vasco starts, and Síora frowns at him in confusion, pointing to the mark on her face.

“Some of us do,” she says. “Our bond with the island is visible, but for those of us bonded to someone else, we don’t have names on our skin.”

Vasco ponders on how to word this, then says, “But you do have soulmates? People you’re bonded to?”

“Yes.”

“Then how do you find them if not through a name?”

“Through feeling,” Síora replies. “It starts with dreams when we are younger, where we see glimpses of them. Little bits and pieces. As we grow older, that turns into a feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“The first time you see them, you know,” she explains. “You _feel _it. For those that are bonded to someone of another clan, they go on a journey through all the different villages of the island until they find the person they’re looking for.”

Vasco remembers the first time he heard Tristan call out to him on the docks of Sérène. His heart stopped and an overwhelming sense of _rightness _came over him; he still doesn’t have an explanation for what happened there, other than assuming his body was confused.

It’s a piss-poor excuse, but the alternative was already crossed out for him when Admiral Cabral gave him his birth name. 

Besides, Vasco is not a native. The people from the continent and the Nauts don’t use some special sort of feeling to find their soulmates, but their names. It seems like a strangely detached way of going about it now that Vasco compares it to the way the islanders do it. No wonder some Nauts have no trouble turning away from their soulmates.

“And if you don’t find your soulmate on this journey?” Vasco presses, dismissing his ponderings for another time. “What then?”

Síora looks surprised at the question, pensive for a moment, before she finally says, “I’ve never heard of that happening. It is said the island chooses the one who would be most right for us. It wouldn’t make sense for one of us to be bonded to someone outside of the island.”

Vasco stares at her, flummoxed. “You’ve never heard of another islander being bonded to, say, someone from the continent?”

“No, never.” Síora gives him a curious look, but Vasco ignores it, too baffled by what he’s just learned.

He stares down into his cup again, a deep frown on his face as he considers the implications, before he looks up at her with urgency. “Drust. Does that name mean anything to you?”

If the natives truly go on a journey from village to village to find their soulmate, then Drust must have gone on the same journey. She could’ve heard about him, maybe.

“I don’t know of anyone by that name,” Síora says after some thought. “It is a name from the island, though. It is probably from the word _drest_, which means tumult in our language. Why? Are you trying to find someone by that name?”

Vasco rubs at his forehead, trying to mentally sort out the possibilities when it suddenly hits him.

Maybe Drust never went to look for him. Maybe, like some of the Nauts do, he decided to disregard the bond in its entirety.

“Can people reject their bond?” Vasco inquires.

“Yes,” Síora answers, having been inordinately patient with him this whole time, possibly because of her own curiosity that Vasco sees shining behind her eyes. “If the clan of your bonded is in direct opposition to yours you could choose to reject them, but that is very rare. More common is choosing not to make the journey at all.”

That might be why Síora has never heard of Drust, then, but at this point this is all conjecture. Vasco leans back into his chair, unsure of how to feel about this. If Drust didn’t even bother to look for him, that would be answer enough, but Vasco doesn’t know with certainty that that’s what happened.

“Thank you, Síora,” Vasco says with sincere gratitude. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.” 

Síora gives him a long look. “This Drust, is he…?”

No point in lying to her when she already suspects. “He is. I have his name marked on me.”

“That’s…” Síora appears shocked. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before. This must be- perhaps the first time ever…” She trails off, appearing to realize it’s not improving Vasco’s mood any, and instead smiles reassuringly at him instead. “I’m certain you will find him. It may take a while to visit all the villages, but there is sure to be someone who has heard of him who can help you.”

“I appreciate it,” Vasco mutters, averting his gaze back to his cup.

What he doesn’t say, letting it go unspoken between them, is that he doesn’t know if he wants to find Drust at all.

* * *

Tristan nearly breathes a sigh of relief when Vasco meets him and the others by the gates the following morning.

After their conversation yesterday, Vasco didn’t return to Tristan’s residence. Tristan learned later from Síora that Vasco chose to stay at the inn, and that had probably been for the better. Tristan kept himself busy the whole night by forcing himself to listen to the petty concerns of New Sérène’s aristocracy, but he worried throughout that Vasco would cut his losses and quit.

But he _shouldn’t _feel relieved that Vasco chose to stay. Not after the commitment he made to start over with Vasco, to forget all of his foolish notions about them being soulmates, but Tristan cannot snuff out his feelings so easily. He can only suppress it and pray that will be enough.

Which is admittedly difficult to do when seeing Vasco feels like watching the sun rise, but hopefully he’ll find some way to get over it. Eventually.

“Good morning,” Tristan greets Vasco as he approaches with a traveling bag slung over his shoulder, receiving a nod from Kurt and a friendly smile from Síora.

“Morning,” Vasco replies, and Tristan has to hand it to him: there’s no evidence of last night’s turmoil on his features. Aside from the sharp look in his eyes that seems to always be present in some form or another, Vasco’s expression is perfectly neutral.

“Ready to go?”

Vasco’s tone is entirely unaffected when he answers, and Tristan is beginning to very much dislike the attitude, even though _he _was the one who asked for it. “Lead the way.”

At least leading the party means he won’t have to deal with his eyes constantly drifting over to Vasco, though Tristan finds himself almost painfully aware of Vasco’s presence at his back as they head out all the same. Most of the conversation is between Kurt and Síora as neither Tristan or Vasco, it seems, are partial to chatter at the moment.

If nothing else, the island itself is beautiful. Tristan has scarcely seen this much green in his life as he walks the dirt road, meadows stretching out on either side of him while they travel farther and farther away from New Sérène. The forests seem endless, teeming with life, wild and uncontrolled but all the more beautiful for it, especially for someone who has grown up with stone and brick surrounding him all his life.

Perhaps it is because of this wonder that Tristan doesn’t notice the danger lurking among the trees, but thankfully for him, someone else does.

There’s a grip on his coat and Tristan finds himself being yanked back with such force he collides into someone, arms catching him around the waist right before the sound of a gunshot rings out from the forest.

He hears Kurt swear loudly, spots Síora unsheathing her blade as it bursts into flame from the corner of his eye and within moments, brigands are upon them.

“Did you get hit?”

It’s Vasco’s voice in his ear.

Tristan quickly straightens up, extracting himself from Vasco’s hold—his heart pounds, whether from the danger or the embrace he cannot tell—and lets his palms flare with magic as he turns his attention on their ambushers. “I’m fine!”

There are five of them, seeming experienced as well. Tristan hangs back as he lets Kurt and Síora take most of the heat, focusing his attention on the rifleman who had nearly shot him a moment ago. With magic surging from his hands, bursts of dark energy find their target like arrows. The rifleman is stunned by the volley, collapsing helplessly on the ground.

Kurt and Síora both fight two opponents with a heavy blade and an axe, but seem to have it under control. When Tristan turns around to Vasco, however, he finds the man dueling not one, but _two_ brigands at once, and what’s more, he appears to have the upper hand at that.

Vasco seems to almost anticipate the moves of his opponents as they make them, the edge of his longsword flickering in the sunlight as he parries and counters with ease. Were it not for Tristan’s diligent training in the art of combat, he might’ve stopped and stared, but of course this isn’t a duel where everyone plays fair. The moment Vasco starts pushing both brigands back, they switch tactics.

Tristan spots one of them reach for the gun hanging off their belt while the other lunges at Vasco, forcing him to step away to dodge. The fear that comes over Tristan is what spurs him on as he dashes forward as Vasco is pushed back, taking the gunslinger by surprise; before the brigand can even pull his weapon from his belt, Tristan slams the magic concentrated within his palm straight into the man’s chest.

The brigand is sent tumbling backwards, his companion startling in surprise—Tristan is sure he felt a few ribs break.

Beside him Vasco uses the opportunity to cleanly cut the edge of his blade across the other brigand’s throat. He watches as the brigand collapses, choking and gurgling before finally going still. It's a gruesome sight, one Tristan doesn't think he'll ever get used to.

He glances behind him to find Kurt and Síora also having finished off their respective opponents, needing no assistance on that front as they have moved on to checking the brigands for any valuables. He turns to look at Vasco, then halts when he notices a tear in Vasco’s coat, around his shoulder. The dark gray fabric is colored red.

“You’re bleeding,” Tristan points out to Vasco in alarm, who averts his gaze from the dead brigand to blink at Tristan, then glance down at his shoulder.

“Ah.” Vasco disregards the injury in favor of wiping his sword down some cloth he pulls out of a pocket, and while it leads Tristan to ponder if Vasco really keeps handkerchiefs around just to clean his blade with, the more pressing matter is the cut on Vasco’s shoulder. “It’s not as serious as it looks. Do we have antidotes against poison?”

He seems remarkably calm about the fact that he may have just gotten poisoned off of that glancing blow. Meanwhile, Tristan is having heart palpitations as he drops his bag to the ground and quickly goes rummaging through it for an antidote as well as a cure to stop the bleeding.

“Why didn’t you simply use your gun?” Tristan asks irritably as he pulls out the two vials and hands them over to Vasco.

Vasco uses the antidote first, uncorking the vial before knocking it all back, draining it and grimacing slightly at the taste. “I thought it would be a waste of bullets.”

“All that unnecessary swashbuckling could’ve gotten you seriously injured,” Tristan insists, and Vasco scowls at him, appearing offended.

“Swashbuckling- I wasn’t _swashbuckling_,” he protests as he tosses the empty vial back, then uncorks the health potion, dripping half of its contents over his wound without so much as a wince. “Some of us actually know how to wield a sword, De Sardet.”

Tristan’s lips part, momentarily speechless in his indignation. “I am perfectly capable with a sword.”

“You seemed far more comfortable throwing your little spells around than actually using that blade at your hip,” Vasco replies nonchalantly as he hands the half-filled health potion back to Tristan. “Or would you care to prove me wrong?”

Is Vasco challenging him to a duel?

Tristan considers the idea, finding himself not wholly opposed to it. In truth, he favors his sword over his magic, and Vasco would make for a very skilled opponent. The way he moved, expertly handling the two brigands without a hair out of place, sent Tristan’s heart beating a little bit faster in his chest from excitement.

Still, a duel right now would be less than ideal, especially considering Vasco’s wound.

“How about we—” Tristan cuts himself off when Vasco starts to sway a little, seeing it coming right before it happens.

Vasco stumbles, knees giving out and Tristan leaps forward, catching him just in time and keeping him upright.

“Are you alright?”

Vasco clings to the front of Tristan’s coat, breathing hard for a moment before he shakes his head and steadies himself. “Need to wait for the antidote to kick in.”

“Right.” Tristan is intimately aware of how they’re pressed together, Tristan’s arms locked around Vasco’s lower back. Heat flashes beneath Tristan’s clothes, warming his skin, up his neck and into his face and he’s thankful for Vasco’s chin resting on his shoulder or he would’ve seen Tristan flush a hundred shades of red at once.

“You two, uh, doing okay?”

Tristan turns to see Kurt and Síora staring at the two of them, and he very much wishes the ground would swallow him up.

“Vasco was poisoned,” he says with a straight face, which isn’t worth much when that face is also blushing.

“Uh-huh.” Kurt crosses his arms, appearing distinctly unconvinced as he glances between the two of them. Síora, on the other hand, merely appears bewildered, giving Vasco a questioning look.

Vasco doesn’t look back at her. He seems content to hide his face away in the crook of Tristan’s neck, which Tristan wishes he wouldn’t do because it stiffens his spine in a way Tristan can’t control, a much too pleasant tension that he cannot indulge in for fear of where it leads.

Eventually, Vasco pulls away from him, seeming steadier on his feet. Tristan reluctantly retracts his arms, missing the warmth against his body already.

“Let’s keep going,” Vasco says, though he’s not looking at Tristan as he speaks, avoiding his eyes.

Tristan is almost relieved for it. “If you’re sure.”

They continue down the road that will lead them to Vedrad, on a mission to stop a war from breaking out, and yet Tristan can think of nothing but Vasco.

Starting over is going to be more difficult than he anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're taking the very hilarious trajectory from soulmates to friends to lovers and eventually back to soulmates again and i emphasize, this is only possible because tristan and vasco are both _tremendous_ dumbasses and i think i should just tag this fic Idiots to Lovers at this point


End file.
